Firefighters rescued a tenant and two cats during a three-alarm fire yesterday that roared through a Pine Street rooming house.

Fire Chief John Touhey said no one was hurt in the blaze at 31 Pine St., which was caused by careless smoking. It sparked when a cigarette ignited a tenant's bed in a first-floor apartment, the chief said.

Rescuers used a ladder truck to reach a tenant who was hanging out of his third-floor bedroom window, unable to escape with all the thick smoke and fire.

"I'm all right, just a little shaken up," said Gary Howe, 42, right after he was helped down the fire truck's extended ladder to the ground.

Touhey said the fire, reported at 12:44 p.m., got out of control as crews needed to concentrate first on people's safety.

Flames shot from the first floor up three stories to the roof, and drifting smoke forced the evacuation and closing of the town library next door.

Firefighters, who took hoses inside the house to attack the fire, had to evacuate, fearing the building would collapse.

Crews with Milford Ladder 1, on one side, and Franklin Tower 1, on the other, drenched the house with 1,600 gallons of water per minute for about an hour until the flames finally were extinguished.

"What a shame," said local real estate agent David Consigli, part of a large crowd of onlookers who gathered as news helicopters hovered overhead.

Consigli is cousins with property owner Bob Ruggiero, who was out of town.

Tenant Clifford Hilton said he was working at Bill's Pizza on Main Street when the blaze broke out and tenant Chris Parente came running in the pizza shop, frantic.

Police said Parente, the son of former state Rep. Marie Parente, told detectives the fire, which started in his bedroom, was an accident.

Another resident, Amber Forget, 26, escaped from her first-floor apartment with boyfriend Damon Jolie, but their disabled cat, Harmony, was still inside.

Forget said she and Jolie were watching TV when Parente banged on their door, screaming that he "couldn't put out the fire and to call 911."

Harmony and another cat that was on the first floor survived and were rescued by Milford Fire lieutenants Mark Nelson and Patrick Salmon after the flames were put out, about three hours into the firefight.

"This is my baby," said a crying Forget, cradling her wet orange-and- white cat that paramedics wrapped in a blanket.

Matt Kelley, 26, worried about his mother's purebred Himalayan cat, Sage, who refused to come out from under the bed as Kelley was forced to evacuate.

"I tried to get her out but I'm not stupid," Kelley said. "If the animal's not going to come out, I'm not going to risk my life."

Touhey said there was smoke damage to the rear apartments (including Kelley's mother's unit), while the seven apartments in the front of the building (where Forget, Parente and Hilton lived), were a total loss.

The Red Cross came to help the 16 displaced tenants.

The property, which sits beside the First Unitarian Universalist Church, is valued at $543,000, according to assessors records.

Touhey said the blaze did an estimated $300,000 in damage, and electricity and natural gas service lines were cut to the building.

The fire is under investigation by Milford Police and Fire departments, with the help of a state police trooper assigned to the state fire marshal's office.

Officials planned for the building to be boarded up and secured, and for the owner to ultimately have it demolished.

Building Commissioner Anthony DeLuca sized up the damage as black smoke billowed and flames shot from the house.

He said he had talked by phone to Ruggiero and told him if there was a question of danger, the building would need to be torn down immediately.